Redpoint Pays $60K Claim for Canceled Trip to New Zealand

A Redpoint client had a planned vacation to New Zealand with her family totaling over $61,000 for the New Year. A week before they were scheduled to depart, she tore a muscle in her knee while skiing and was unable to travel anywhere. Her travel agent had recommended they insure their trip with Redpoint’s comprehensive travel insurance at the time of booking, so when they stood to lose the entire cost of the vacation, including airfare, activities, and lodging, they contacted Redpoint.

Redpoint’s elite travel insurance products cover trip cancellation due to a wide variety of reasons, including the knee injury, so when Redpoint received the claim, the travelers were reimbursed the full amount of their trip.

Cavalry Elite Travel Insurance combines into a single program the best evacuation services with travel insurance benefits such as trip cancellation, trip interruption, lost baggage, primary medical expense coverages, and is designed for the savvy luxury traveler.

A medical evacuation and paramedic escort from Kenya

The Redpoint paramedic escorts the client in Kenya

A Redpoint client was aboard a boat off the shore of East Africa when a rogue wave slammed into her boat and sent her flying. Later tests would reveal that she had fractured her femur in the fall. She was taken from the boat via inflatable raft to Assumption Island, near the Tanzanian coast, and was flown from there via fixed-wing aircraft to a world-class hospital in Nairobi, Kenya.

Assumption Island

There, she was met by a Redpoint paramedic from the company’s South African office, who followed her treatment and explained it to her until she was cleared to fly to Dallas, Texas, for a procedure to stabilize her broken leg.

Meanwhile, Redpoint had dispatched another critical care paramedic from the United States to Nairobi to assist and escort her on a lie-flat seat to Dubai, and then on to a connecting flight to Dallas. That paramedic continued to assist her during her surgery in Texas, and made arrangements for discounted parking during her extended physical therapy before arranging for her ultimate transport home to Arkansas.

Cavalry combines the best medevac insurance with travel insurance benefits such as trip cancellation, trip interruption, lost baggage, primary medical expense coverages, and more. Cavalry is powered by Redpoint Resolutions, a medical and travel risk security company owned and operated by special operations veterans and physicians.

Redpoint covers almost 10 million people worldwide and has evacuated clients from all seven continents.

Intestinal illness in Peru

A Cavalry Travel Insurance client was on vacation in Peru, when she felt severe abdominal pain. She visited a local clinic in Machu Picchu and was diagnosed with an intestinal illness. She was treated in outpatient care, was able to continue the trip, but still incurred some medical bills.

As a comprehensive travel insurance policyholder with Cavalry, she submitted a medical expense claim for those bills and Cavalry reimbursed her in full.

Cavalry combines the best medevac insurance with travel insurance benefits such as trip cancellation, trip interruption, lost baggage, primary medical expense coverages, and more. Cavalry is powered by Redpoint Resolutions, a medical and travel risk security company owned and operated by special operations veterans and physicians.

Redpoint covers almost 10 million people worldwide and has evacuated clients from all seven continents.

Ankle injury cancels Georgia trip

A Cavalry Travel Insurance client had booked a luxury trekking tour of the Republic of Georgia when, about two weeks before departure, she had an accident. She stepped in a hole in her front yard and injured her ankle. The client had the injury evaluated by her doctor, who advised against any travel.

Because the injury occurred so close to the departure date of her trekking trip, it meant forfeiting the entirety of her deposits with the tour operator, amounting to $12,800. As a comprehensive travel insurance policyholder with Cavalry, she submitted a trip cancellation claim and Cavalry reimbursed her the full amount.

Cavalry combines the best medevac insurance with travel insurance benefits such as trip cancellation, trip interruption, lost baggage, primary medical expense coverages, and more. Cavalry is powered by Redpoint Resolutions, a medical and travel risk security company owned and operated by special operations veterans and physicians.

Redpoint covers almost 10 million people worldwide and has evacuated clients from all seven continents.

A slip and fall on the stairs

A Redpoint client was touring Amman, Jordan, with her husband when she fell down a set of stairs and her leg was in severe pain. Suspecting serious injury, her tour guide arranged for her to be taken to a local hospital and then contacted Redpoint, who were in immediate communication with local doctors.

X-rays at the Jordanian hospital revealed that the client had sustained a fractured ankle and would require surgery. She elected to have that procedure done at home in Texas.

After physicians had set a temporary cast, provided her with pain medications and cleared her for air travel, Redpoint flew the couple home in lay-flat class seats where she could comfortably recline and elevate her leg. Redpoint arranged for wheelchair transport for their departing flight, connections and arrival. A driver picked them up at Dallas Fort Worth airport and brought them home, where she is awaiting surgery.

Cavalry combines the best medevac insurance with travel insurance benefits such as trip cancellation, trip interruption, lost baggage, primary medical expense coverages, and more. Cavalry is powered by Redpoint Resolutions, a medical and travel risk security company owned and operated by special operations veterans and physicians.

Redpoint covers almost 10 million people worldwide and has evacuated clients from all seven continents.

To celebrate her 60th birthday, Andrea Shelly booked a trip to Tanzania and Rwanda through Butterfield & Robinson, a luxury tour operator. She planned to bring her adult children on the two-week adventure. But with a $130,000 price tag, Shelly knew that ordinary travel insurance wouldn’t do — and she was right.

A few months before her planned departure, one of Shelly’s sons got a promotion and the family decided to postpone their African safari.

“It didn’t feel like it was appropriate to take so much time off as a newly-minted associate,” explains Shelly, a real estate investor from Irvine, Calif.

Had Shelly bought a garden-variety travel insurance policy with named perils, she’d be out of luck. A work promotion isn’t covered by most travel insurance policies. She’d be on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars in nonrefundable charges.

Fortunately, she’d purchased insurance through a specialty provider called Cavalry Elite Travel Insurance. It’s cancel-for-any-reason trip protection that pays 75 percent of your trip, no questions asked. Cavalry quickly cut Shelly a check for $19,000, the portion of her deposit and nonrefundable airfare due under the policy.

Travel insurance is diversifying. While standard travel insurance can cover most normal vacation trips, there are outliers including luxury vacations, corporate travel, and adventure vacations that demand special coverage. These newer types of policies match the unique nature of the trips to the coverage, building on a portfolio of niche insurance products that already exist. All told, they offer travelers more choices when they’re looking for insurance.

Travel insurance isn’t a one-size-fits-all product

“We believe travel insurance is not a one-size-fits-all product,” says Tom Bochnowski, a vice president for Redpoint Resolutions, which provides evacuation, travel assistance, and non-insurance services, and which owns Cavalry Elite Travel Insurance. “What you need for a family trip to Disney World is a lot different than what you need for climbing Everest. And what you need for climbing Everest is much different than what you need for a luxury tour of Europe.”

Tour operators feel that way, too. Simon Elliott, director of industry partners at Butterfield & Robinson, says his customers needed more than regular trip protection because of the specialized nature of their tours.

“We’re looking for a change from the standard wholesale insurance product we had been offering for many years,” he says. “It really was one-size-fits-all with everyone paying the same rate irrespective of their age and it was not flexible in the ways we needed it to be to reflect our evolving business.”

The perks of due diligence and an overlooked Asian cuisine

Redpoint team members were touring Laos on one of their regular due diligence tours this month, when they came across a gastronomical find to remember.

One of the perks of visiting air providers, hospitals and other medical and security contacts throughout the world is the chance to sample the cuisine everywhere they go, and even find hometown favorites halfway across the globe.

This time, the Asia team was fortunate enough to run across a Laotian restaurant that had recently been featured on CNN.

The Doi Ka Noi restaurant in Vientiane has been making international headlines in a country whose cuisine is not well known in the Western Hemisphere.

Redpoint’s staff had the chance to sample the national dish, larb – a meat salad flavored with mint, chili, lime and fish sauce – as well as tilapia and crispy duck.

Cavalry combines the best medevac insurance with travel insurance benefits such as trip cancellation, trip interruption, lost baggage, primary medical expense coverages, and more. Cavalry is powered by Redpoint Resolutions, a medical and travel risk security company owned and operated by special operations veterans and physicians.

Redpoint covers almost 10 million people worldwide and has evacuated clients from all seven continents.

Boules, bowls and bowling

When we talk about the world’s oldest competitive sports – discus throw, polo and even hockey – one of them is overlooked: Lawn bowls. Other sports like running, wrestling and boxing also have a pretty long history, but when it comes to those played with balls, bowling tops them all.

There is evidence of bowling in Egypt some 5,000 years ago, using balls made of husks, covered in leather and bound by string. The Ancient Romans had a similar game, trying to toss large round stones as close as possible to smaller ones. This developed into what the Italians call bocce, or “balls.”

As the game moved throughout Europe and the rest of the world, it took on some different looks.

When Roman soldiers brought the game to France, the locals eventually switched out the stone balls for wooden ones, and boules was born. Just like in the Italian version, players would roll the balls toward a target. Centuries later, players in the South of France preferred tossing them through the air, trading wood for steel, and the game became pétanque. Go to any small town in Provence or the Cote d’Azure on a summer day, and you are sure to find a gathering of older men on a gravel court, pastis in hand, tape measures in their back pockets, pétanquing away.

‘Birdies by the Bay’

Captain Richard Phillips was the keynote speaker of the latest edition of “Birdies by the Bay,” an annual golf tournament held on Sept 24 in Half Moon Bay, California, to raise money for the Navy SEAL Foundation (NSF). The story of the hijacking of his ship by Somali pirates in 2009, and his rescue by Navy SEAL snipers, was retold in the 2013 movie, “Captain Phillips,” starring Tom Hanks.

As he has done for the past few years, Redpoint Resolutions Vice President Ted Muhlner assembled a team for the booster event, and brushed off the golf cleats in order to raise money for the Navy SEAL Foundation. Muhlner is a former SEAL and serves on the board of the Foundation. The NSF is dedicated to building a strong and resilient Naval Special Warfare community and ensuring our service members know that they and their families are well cared for.

Cavalry combines the best medevac insurance with travel insurance benefits such as trip cancellation, trip interruption, lost baggage, primary medical expense coverages, and more. Cavalry is powered by Redpoint Resolutions, a medical and travel risk security company owned and operated by special operations veterans and physicians.

Redpoint covers almost 10 million people worldwide and has evacuated clients from all seven continents.

Three facts about the world’s biggest beer bash

Shouldn’t it be called Septemberfest?

The first question that invariably pops up around Oktoberfest in Munich is, why is it held in September? The first Oktoberfest was held 108 years ago in honor of a Bavarian royal wedding, and as might be imagined it was smack in the middle of the month for which it is named: Oct. 12 to 17th.

As it turns out, people enjoyed this excuse to binge on local brews for more than just five days, and so it was gradually extended to the current 16. It also proved much more fun to drink beer outdoors on mild sunny days, rather than under the cold rains that perennially pick up in October and last well into November. Thus, the September start. This year’s Oktoberfest runs from Sept 22 to Oct. 7.